WASHINGTON – Senate Republican leader Trent Lott yesterday begged forgiveness for his “terrible” remarks that seemed to defend segregation as he battled to save his job against growing pressure to step down.
“Segregation and racism are immoral,” Lott told a news conference in Pascagoula, Miss.
“It was wrong and immoral then, and it is now. I apologize for opening old wounds and hurting many Americans who feel so deeply in this area.”
But Lott said he’s no racist and insisted he won’t step down as President Bush’s point man in the Senate: “I’m not about to resign for an accusation that I’m something I am not.”
Lott’s apology came the day after President Bush blasted him for “oensive” comments suggesting America would be better off if Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) had been elected president in 1948.
Republicans, getting more jittery by the moment, said whether Lott survives as Senate leader could depend on whether his latest apology calms the storm or the furor keeps boiling over on tomorrow’s Sunday talk shows and into next week.
“I’d put it about 50-50. If this thing keeps going, he might feel the pressure, but he’s going to have to come to it himself – the way this place works, it’s so clubby, the other senators aren’t likely to push him,” said a Republican Senate staffer who’d like him gone.
Despite his repeated professions of deep personal regret, Lott at times seemed weirdly jocular yesterday and visibly eager to get the news conference over, saying: “I don’t want this going too long.”
An unhappy black Republican said: “Nothing he says is going to satisfy the people who smell blood in the water – people on the left, people on the right. And I thought he was too cute by half. He didn’t really look upset. His hair didn’t even get mussed.”
If Lott were to step down, many younger Republicans believe Sen. Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) – a cardiac surgeon who’s the only Senate doctor and a respected leader with close White House ties – is the ideal candidate to replace him as a Bush-style “compassionate conservative.”